[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: optional argument notation

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 14 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 14 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



   I notice that in all of your documents (including SRFI-1) you use this
   notation for optional arguments:

       string-hash    s [bound start end] -> integer

   I find this notation to be missleading because it suggests that you
   can only pass one or four parameters (but I believe you want 1, 2, or
   4).  So you should write:

       string-hash    s [bound [start end]] -> integer

It must be misleading, since you got it wrong both ways! a [b c d] means
these are all OK:
  a
  a b
  a b c
  a b c d

I find the pedantic alternative of writing, e.g.,
       string-hash    s [bound [start [end]]] -> integer
too ugly and hard to parse.

If there *were* a case where optional args were "chunked," it would be
rare enough that I could simply mention it in the accompanying text.

I will add a little explanatory paragraph to the SRFIs describing the
meaning of this notation. How's that?
    -Olin